The present invention relates, generally, to apparatus and methods usable for rig-less abandonment and the forming of a geologic testing space that can be usable to reallocate the use of, for example, drilling rigs, for performing well abandonments and testing or proving new technology to other uses, including using the proven technology with said drilling rigs for the further development of Brownfield and Greenfield subterranean deposits. Various new technologies, which can be usable, testable and provable during rig-less abandonment, include the new technologies discussed in prior applications of the present inventor, for example: UK Patent 2465478, entitled “Apparatus And Methods For Operating A Plurality Of Wells Through A Single Bore”; United Kingdom Patent Application having Number GB1011290.2 and PCT Patent Application GB2010/051108, both entitled “Apparatus And Methods For A Sealing Subterranean Borehole And Performing Other Cable Downhole Rotary Operations,” and both filed Jul. 5, 2010; United Kingdom patent application having Patent Application Number GB1021787.5, entitled “Managed Pressure Conduit Assembly Systems And Methods For Using a Passageway Through Subterranean Strata,” filed Dec. 23, 2010; United Kingdom Patent Application Number GB1015428.4, entitled “Shock Absorbing Conduit Orientation Sensor Housing System” filed 16 Sep. 2010; Patent Cooperation Treaty Application Number US2011/000377, entitled “Manifold String For Selectively Controlling Flowing Fluid Streams of Varying Velocities In Wells From A Single Main Bore,” filed Mar. 1, 2011 and United Kingdom Patent Application having Number GB1104278.5, of the same title, filed 15 March, 2011; PCT Application Number US2011/000372, entitled “Pressure Controlled Well Construction and Operation Systems and Methods Usable for Hydrocarbon Operations, Storage And Solution Mining,” filed Mar. 1, 2011 and United Kingdom Patent Application having Number GB1104278.5, of the same title, filed 15 March, 2011; United Kingdom Patent Application having Number GB1116098.3, entitled “Rig-less Abandonment Testing”, filed 19 Sep. 2011; United Kingdom Patent Application having Number GB1121741.1, entitled “Rotary Stick, Slip And Vibration Reduction Drilling Stabilizers With Hydrodynamic Fluid Bearings And Homogenizers”, filed 16 Dec. 2011; and United Kingdom Patent Application having Number GB1121743.7, entitled “Cable Compatible Fluid Hydrodynamic And Homogenizing Bearing Rotary Steerable System For Drilling And Milling”, filed 16 Dec. 2011, each of which is incorporated herein in its entirety by reference.
The present invention claims priority to Patent Application Number GB1111482.4, which can be usable to, for example, provide a four (4) dimensional space by including the extra dimension of geologic time. Previous to this invention relating to the creation and use of a four (4) dimensional space, prior applications of the present inventor discussed the creation and use of two and three dimensional spaces, for example, Patent Application Number GB1011290.2, discloses methods and systems usable to provide a three (3) dimensional usable space within a well and Patent Application Number GB1116098.3 discloses a method usable to, for example, test the sealing of three and/or four dimensional spaces, which are sealed with cement or a settable material.
Although various aspects of these prior applications, including patent applications GB1011290.2 and GB1111482.4, teach apparatus and methods for hydraulically driven pistons, the present invention teaches the use of a bore hole piston apparatus, comprising a rig-less bore hole opening member that can be driven by hydraulics, explosions, a cable, or combinations thereof, for the formation of a geologic testing space. Further, the embodiments of the present application include apparatus and methods for using the geologic testing space to prove one or more unproven downhole apparatus, for operation within a proximally similarly aged geology of an aging well, another aging well (79), a new well (80), or a field of wells (79, 80), generally referred to as Brownfields (79) and Greenfields (80).
In addition, embodiments of the present application, claiming priority to GB1121741.1, provide apparatus and methods of forming a hydrodynamic bearing motor, usable to, for example, drive a milling surface on an arm of a milling arrangement or form the shock and vibration reducing part of fluid and/or electric motors, which can be usable by the present invention during the forming of a subterranean space.
Despite having significant merit, various new technologies disclosed in prior patent applications of other inventors can be difficult to deploy, due to the risk tolerance of Operators and the oligopolistic practices of the large service providers dominating the industry who, understandably, prefer using technology with the highest immediate return, thus making new technology development difficult.
Ultimately, before being accepted, new technology must employ field testing and further development, with various adjustments to the original invention, to provide a robust solution. However, few practitioners are willing to risk the consequences of such testing of the new technologies, particularly given the explosive nature of hydrocarbons and historic catastrophic events within the oil and gas industry.
Well operators face a series of challenges at each stage of a well's lifecycle as they seek to balance the need to maximise economic recovery and to reduce the net present value of an abandonment liability to meet their obligations for safe and environmentally sensitive operations and abandonment. When wells lose structural integrity, which may be defined as an apparent present or probable future loss of pressure or fluid bearing capacity and/or general operability, all or portions of a well may be shut-in for maintenance or suspension, until final abandonment, or may require immediate plugging and abandonment, potentially leaving reserves within the strata that cannot justify the cost of intervention or a new well.
Some of the more frequently reported structural integrity problems include a lack of production tubing centralization leading to conduit erosion from thermal cycled movement; corrosion within the well conduit system; e.g., from biological organisms or H2S forming leaks through or destroying conduits or equipment; and/or valve failures associated with subsurface safety valves, gas lift valves, annuli valves and other such equipment. Other common issues include unexplained annulus pressure, connector failures, scale, wear of casings from drilling operations, wellhead growth or shrinkage and Xmas or valve tree malfunctions or leaks at surface or subsea. Such issues comprise areas where operators are able to, or chose to, test, and there are others (such as the internals of a conductor) which they cannot, or do not test, and which may represent a serious risk to economic viability and the environment. Problems within various portions of a well, in particular the annuli, cannot be conventionally accessed without significant intervention or breaking of well barriers, e.g., with a drilling rig. Thus, these significant operations are an expensive cost and considerable safety risk to operators, who are unsuitable for conventional rig-less operations.
A primary advantage, of using drilling specification rigs for well intervention, is the removal of conduits and access to annuli during well intervention and abandonment, wherein the ability to access and determine the condition of the annuli casing and primary cement behind the production conduit or tubing can be used to make key decisions regarding the future production and/or abandonment. If well casings are corroded or lack an outer cement sheath, remedial action, e.g. casing milling, may be taken by a drilling rig to provide a permanent barrier. Conversely, the problem may be exacerbated by conventional rig-less well abandonment when blind decisions are made without cement logging access to annuli and attempts to place cement fail, thereby placing another barrier over potentially serious and worsening well integrity issues that can represent a significant future challenge, both technically and economically, even for a drilling rig.
Various method embodiments of the present invention can be usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology relating to, for example, the gathering of empirical information that conventional rig-less operations cannot, by providing access and/or space for both measurement devices and sealing materials. Once such information is gathered, still other method embodiments can be usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving rig-lessly placed barriers, and milling or shredding conduits and/or casings to expose and bridge across hard impermeable strata, or cap rock formations, for placement of permanent barriers, without imbedding equipment in cement, to ensure structural integrity.
In general, age is believed to be the primary cause of structural well integrity problems. The combination of erosion, corrosion and general fatigue failures associated with prolonged field life, particularly within wells exceeding their design lives, together with the poor design, installation and integrity assurance standards associated with the aging well stock, is generally responsible for increased frequency of problems over time. These problems can be further exacerbated by, e.g., increasing levels of water cut, production stimulation, and gas lift later in field life.
However, the prevalent conventional consensus is that although age is undoubtedly a significant issue, if it is managed correctly, it should not be a cause of structural integrity problems that may cause premature cessation of production. Additionally, fully depleting producing zones through further production, prior to abandonment, provides an environment of subterranean pressure depletion that can be better suited for placing permanent barriers by lowering the propensity of lighter fluids like gas to enter, e.g., cement during placement.
The embodiments of the present invention provides lower cost rig-less methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving the accessing of annuli and for selectively placing pressure bearing conduits and well barrier elements at required subterranean depths, between annuli, when intervening in, maintaining and/or abandoning portions of a well to isolated portions affected by erosion and corrosion. This, in turn, extends the well life to fully deplete a reservoir and, further, to reduce the risk associated with well barrier element placement and the pollution liability from an improperly abandoned well.
The level of maintenance, intervention and workover operations necessary for well maintenance is restricted by the substantial conventional costs required for such work. The limited production levels of aging assets often cannot justify the conventional practice of using higher cost drilling rigs and conventional rig-less technology is generally incapable of accessing various passageways or all annuli within the well.
Therefore, well operators generally place an emphasis on removing troublesome assets from their portfolio and seek to prevent future problems using improved designs, rather than attempting to remedy a poorly designed well, which in turn precipitates a greater focus on asset disposal, well design, installation and/or integrity assurance. Passing the problem on to others with the sale of a well does not, however, solve the issue of abandoning existing and aging wells from a liability viewpoint.
When intervention is required, the risk-adverse major oil and gas companies generally prefer such operations as asset disposal and replacement, rather than remediation, and favour the sale of aging well assets to smaller companies with lower overheads and higher risk tolerances. Smaller companies, requiring a lower profit margin to cover marginal cost, are generally eager to acquire such marginal assets but, in future, may be unable to afford well abandonment, thus putting the liability back to the original owner and preventing sale or creating a false economy for the seller. Low cost reliable rig-less placements of well barrier elements, to delay or perform abandonment, is critical to large and small companies if aging assets are to be bought and sold and/or to avoid such false economies. Thus, the rig-less methods and members of the present invention, usable to place and verify well barrier elements for reliable abandonment, are important to all companies operating, selling and/or buying aging wells.
Therefore, the structural integrity of producing and abandoning wells is critical because the liability of well abandonment cannot be passed on if a well ultimately leaks pollutants to the surface, water tables or ocean environments, because most governments hold all previous owners of a well liable for its abandonment and environmental impacts associated with subsequent pollution. Hence, the sale of a well liability does not necessarily end the risk, when the asset is sold or abandoned, unless the final abandonment provides permanent structural integrity.
Method embodiments of the present invention are usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving of rig-less well intervention and maintenance, to extend the life of a well, by placing well barrier elements to isolate or abandon a portion of a well; and then, operating another portion of the well until no further economic production exists or well integrity prevents further extraction or storage operations. Thereafter, the well may be completely and permanently abandoned for an indefinite period of time, using embodiments of the present invention to rig-lessly and selectively access annuli for both placement and verification of well barriers, including barriers that provide a geologic testing space for said benchmarking, developing, testing and improving of new technology.
Therefore, a need exists for improved stability of drilling and directional drilling assemblies for jointed and rotary coiled string operations.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology that can be usable for delaying abandonment, with low cost rig-less operations for placement of well barrier elements to increase the return on invested capital for both substantially hydrocarbon and substantially water wells, through rig-less side-tracking for marginal production enhancement, suspending and/or abandoning portions of a well, for re-establishing or prolonging well structural integrity for aging production and storage well assets, and preventing pollution of subterranean horizons, such as water tables, or surface and ocean environments.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology that can be usable for small operating foot print rig-less well barrier element placement operations, which are usable to control cost and/or perform operations in a limited space, e.g. electric line or slickline operations, on normally unmanned platforms, from boats over subsea wells or in environmentally sensitive area, e.g. permafrost areas, where a hostile environment and environmental impact are concerns. A related need also exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology usable for working, within a closed pressure controlled envelope, to prevent exposing both operating personnel and the environment to the risk of losing control of subterranean pressures if a well intervention kill weight fluid column is lost to, e.g., subterranean fractures.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology usable for avoiding the high cost of drilling rigs with a rig-less system capable of suspending, side-tracking and/or abandoning onshore and offshore, surface and subsea, substantially hydrocarbon and substantially water wells, using published conventional best practices for placement of industry acceptable permanent abandonment well barrier elements.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology that can be usable for preventing risks and for removing the cost of protecting personnel and the environment from well equipment contaminated with radioactive materials and scale by rig-lessly placing abandonment barriers and leaving equipment downhole. A further need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology, which can be usable to rig-lessly side-track or fracture portions of a well for disposing of hazardous materials that can result from circulation of the well's fluid column during suspension, side-tracking and abandonment operations.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology, which can be usable for rig-lessly accessing annuli to measure whether acceptable sealing cementation exists behind casing, and to rig-lessly mill the casing and to place cement if acceptable cementation does not exist. A further need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology that can be usable to verify the placement of well barrier elements, during rig-less operation, to ensure the successful settable material bonding and sealing of a well's passageways has occurred or whether further remedial work is required.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology, which can be usable for rig-lessly accessing annuli presently inaccessible, particularly with minimal foot-print conventional slickline rig-less operations, including bypassing annulus blockages, created, e.g., by production packers, during placement of permanent well barrier elements within selected portions of a well, across from cap rock and other impermeable formations needed to isolate subterranean pressures over geologic time.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology, which can be usable for a plurality of permanent well barriers that are verifiable through selectively accessed annuli passageways with rig-less operations, usable with conventional logging tools to maintain the structural integrity of a well prior to final abandonment, and that also provide access for placing permanent barriers to ensure structural integrity of the strata bore hole thereafter.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology, which can be usable for marginal production enhancement that is usable to offset operating costs until final abandonment occurs, including rig-lessly providing well integrity, while waiting until an abandonment campaign across a plurality of wells can be used to further reduce costs.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology, which can be usable to reduce the abandonment liability for operators while meeting their obligations of structural well integrity for safe and environmentally sensitive well operations, suspension and abandonment, in an economic manner, that is consistent with providing more capital for exploration of new reserves to meet our world's growing demand for hydrocarbons, by minimising the cost of operations, suspension and abandonment with lower cost rig-less suspension, side-tracking and abandonment technologies.
A need exists for apparatus and methods usable for benchmarking, developing, testing and improving new technology that can be usable to verify rig-less well abandonments to facilitate a market where the reduction of the well abandonment liability allows larger operating overhead companies to sell marginal well assets to smaller, lower overhead, operating companies, i.e. by lowering the risk of a residual abandonment liability, to prevent marginal recoverable reserves from being left within the strata, because higher operating overhead requirements made such recoverable reserves uneconomic.
Finally, a need exists for systems and methods that are usable with existing and new technologies to provide sufficiently inexpensive methods, requiring few or low-cost resources, for forming a geologic testing space to test new or unproven downhole apparatus.
Although the embodiments of the present invention can be considered to create a new market from an existing market, this generalization can be evident in several significantly important prior inventions, for example, the invention of the steam engine, which resulted in the formation of a new market that has been historically summarized as the industrial revolution; the invention of a logging while drilling apparatus, which has formed a directional drilling market; and the invention of a positive displacement mud motor, which has formed a horizontal drilling market, wherein the conventional and prior art apparatuses of the existing markets, at the time of each of these inventions, could not meet the same required needs. Hence, the present invention may result in the formation of a market for testing unproven downhole apparatuses, simply because no such market for the downhole testing of apparatus presently exists.
Therefore, the present invention not only provides an important solution to the need for downhole testing and proving of apparatus, it provides a new market in downhole testing that is necessary because conventionally operating a down hole apparatus is, in practice, more art than science. Science can be considered to be literally “as blind as a bat,” because, for example, it relies entirely upon surface indications and subterraneanly transmitted and reflected signals of downhole tools, which are located within a hazardous geologic environment that is subject to extreme forces, substances, pressures and temperatures, miles below the surface of the earth. Hence, practitioners generally rely more on empirically proved operations than on scientific theories of operation.
Substances, pressures and temperatures associated with the alternating layers of permeable and non-permeable subterranean strata are not foreseeable by using the bouncing of reflected signals upon subterranean reflectors of the geology, geologic fractures, and an almost infinite number of sub-seismic resolution events, stratigraphy and lithology. Hence, a geologic environment cannot be scientifically predicted to the accuracy of empirical downhole apparatus operating data from said geology.
Accordingly, practitioners, often avoid the use of unproven technology within a geologic environment, and use apparatuses with empirically proven operation within the expected geology, due to the potentially extreme costs and risks associated with operating within the extreme geologic forces, substances, pressures and temperatures, miles below the earth's surface.
Consequently, operation within a comparable geologic environment is ultimately the conventional measure of acceptance, wherein practitioners are generally unwilling to accept the risk of being the first to prove and use an unproven apparatus within any particular geology.
Generally, conventional practitioners would rather live with a known problem, such as harmonic resonance and vibration of a boring string, than accept the risk of testing an unproven apparatus, only to have it, for example, come apart and cause significantly more risk and cost through the process of removing lost parts from the well bore.
Accordingly, a need exists for a lower risk and lower cost system and method of proving unproven technology.
Various aspects of the present invention meet these needs.